Mortal
by HardfacedQueenofMisadventure
Summary: You can never afford to fall behind. *contains an OC* Rated T for violence and morbid thoughts.


_**(After staring at this for a ridiculous amount of time, I realised that there was nothing more I could do to salvage it, and left it like this. Say what you will.)**_** Also, this probably takes place before the events of the first film. ****  
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_All because I was too slow. _They hadn't looked back, and part of her wished she could be angry at them for that. Wished that she could somehow make this not her fault.  
But she couldn't.

Getting away had been the priority. She knew that they would have stopped, helped her up, taken her with them…if they hadn't so desperately needed to escape. If only she'd been faster. They'd told her so many times before that all she had to do was believe, let go of her doubts, and she'd be as fast and strong as she needed to be.  
_Guess I still doubted myself a little. Doesn't matter; I was obviously right to. _If she had somehow run faster, or not tripped when she had, then she'd still be with them now, shaken up and breathless but safe.  
And not about to die.

Blood soaked through her top; the fabric was so dark that you could barely see the blood but she could feel it, warm and seeping much more rapidly than was safe. There was so much of it. She was dying, no question about it.  
_What happens to me now? _She mused, closing her eyes as waves of soul-deep pain began washing over her. Now the adrenaline from the chase was ebbing away, she was fully at the mercy of her nerve endings. _If I die here, what happens? I know that my body dies, but what happens to my RSI? Does it just fade away, or is there a virtual body to be picked up by the non-existent police, or…? _Her thoughts had begun to wander untethered, and that frightened her. Her body had begun to go numb, save for the relentless pain. Dull aching in her overworked limbs, a burn in her chest as she still struggled to breathe, the fiery pain of the bullet wound that pierced her stomach and tore a ragged, bloody hole through her back. It was a wonder she was still alive, let alone conscious. She'd seen people die instantly from injuries like hers.  
_Maybe…maybe it's a glitch. Maybe I'm stuck like this, bleeding out. A frozen program, a temporary system crash, doomed to repeat the same actions again and again and again until the system gets rebooted.  
Wait…  
_She could hear footsteps, slow and eerily sharp, approaching her. _They're back! They've found me! _Tears of premature relief gathered in her eyes as the footsteps drew closer. She tried to call out, _hey, I'm here, I'm here, _but her voice had failed her.  
_They'll be in time to watch me die, at least._

She froze in deep-rooted, sudden terror as the Agent rounded the corner. He stood before her, making no moves to touch her in any way. He just stood there, silently watching. She watched him back, her eyes wide and unblinking with the kind of paralysing terror that comes with facing something that you know is likely to kill you.  
The Agent raised a hand, and she flinched weakly, bracing herself for more pain, but all he did was remove his glasses. His eyes – God, so blue – were fixated upon her with a strange intensity. He took her in a little at a time, and she knew she wasn't imagining it when he recoiled fractionally at the sight of the blood, lip curling in mild revulsion.

_Now what do I do? _There was no way she could defend herself: even uninjured, a single person was no match for an Agent, and she could barely gather the strength to move. He could kill her in a heartbeat if he wanted to.  
_Then why doesn't he just do it? _True enough, he was just standing there, completely still. She knew he had a gun, but he did not touch it. _You won't hurt me, will you? Then what are you waiting for? W_ith a chill and the mental clarity that only comes when you've accepted your death, she realised exactly what he was doing.  
_You're waiting for me to die. _Watching her the way an inquisitive child watches the last, fleeting struggles of a bird it has rescued from the jaws of a cat. Heedlessly, mindlessly, morbidly curious. _  
_Black dots had begun to fill her wavering vision, expanding like unfurling roses, or like the bloodstain that marked her fatal wound. Through the dark areas, she could still see his face, his inhumanly blue eyes.  
The last thing she saw before her vision faded for good was the faintest hint of a cold smile on his lips.

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**Not my best work, I'm afraid, but sometimes you have to make do with what your brain gives you. Huge credit goes to Agent Siris, whose oneshot "Death" greatly inspired this piece. I'm thinking of following this up with a piece from the Agent's P.O.V, so keep you eyes open for that. I'm keeping the story status as "complete" for now, though, just in case my muse abandons me. Feedback would be greatly appreciated in the meantime. **


End file.
